Rowley does her own thing in offbeat campaign for House

11/29/2005

Greg Gordon, Star Tribune
Last update: November 28, 2005 at 9:34 PM

WASHINGTON - Former FBI agent Coleen Rowley concedes she’s running an offbeat congressional campaign, hammering away at President Bush for launching the war in Iraq and trying to pin some of the blame on GOP Rep. John Kline.

She dismisses as “total nonsense” the advice of some fellow Democrats that she must broaden her focus to domestic issues, such as education, to win the House seat in Minnesota’s conservative-leaning Second District.

But Rowley, who won fame for publicly assailing the FBI’s pre-Sept. 11 lapses, is struggling to raise money and could face a challenge from within her own party.

State Sen. Sharon Marko, a centrist DFLer from Cottage Grove, says she’ll decide within weeks whether to jump into the race for the Democratic endorsement.

Rowley’s theme has been “ethical decisionmaking,” and she has blanched at traditional high-dollar campaign fundraising that can create awkward appearances. She says that “the playing field is very uneven,” that Kline will probably outspend her by three to one.

“Democrats have been a little critical of me,” Rowley said in phone interviews. “They’ll say, ‘We’re the Democrats. You should talk on education or on domestic issues. Let the Republicans have the foreign policy and the national security issues.’ That’s nonsense, total nonsense. I’m not real controllable, and they don’t like that.”

Rowley says more than half of the would-be constituents she’s met while knocking on doors in Apple Valley and Burnsville oppose the war. She sticks doggedly to her charge that the administration engaged in “outright deception” in justifying the war by citing intelligence that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was amassing weapons of mass destruction.

Marko says an unorthodox campaign by a candidate with name recognition as wide as Rowley’s can have “great public appeal,” as long as it’s not too narrowly focused.

Marko says she wonders whether it will “deflate the antiwar movement”—and Rowley’s campaign—if Bush begins pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq next year.

In the diverse Second District that includes both close-in southern suburbs and rural areas, Marko said, “you’d better be able to appeal to a broad spectrum, and you’d better be in the middle ... I’m just not sure that Ms. Rowley has struck that balance yet.”

Mike Osskopp, Kline’s district director, said Monday that Kline has declined to respond to Rowley’s barbs because the election is too far off and “we really aren’t sure she’s our opponent.”

Amy Walter, House editor for the Cook Political Report, said that to date Rowley has “not really proven to be a very formidable candidate,” citing her “anemic” fundraising. As of Sept. 30, Rowley had $55,000 in cash, compared with Kline’s $358,000.

Rowley also is painting herself as “much more liberal than the district” and risks being tagged as a poor fit, Walter said.

In recent weeks, Rowley has laid out positions on her campaign website that draw a sharp contrast with Kline, a retired Marine colonel.

Besides calling for a graduated withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, Rowley wants Congress to nudge the states to adopt universal health care. While supporting legalized abortion, she favors programs to reduce unplanned pregnancies. She emphasizes protection of Americans’ civil rights amid the war on terrorism.

Kline has been a solid supporter of Bush and the war. Recently, he proposed legislation to withhold federal funding from any college or university that limits access to military recruiters.

His votes have gotten low ratings from environmental groups but he got a perfect score in 2003-04 from the anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee.